Coal news and updates

CIL, Australia tech cos in talks to unlock coal trapped in loss-making mines

State-run miner Coal India is in talks with Australian companies to acquire technology that will help unlock over two billion tonnes of coal trapped in pillars of its lossmaking underground mines.

The new technology will enable the monopoly miner to extract more than 70% additional coal from its existing, abandoned and future mines, officials said.

 The company uses the conventional bord and pillar method, which involves building of pillars of coal to keep the mines from caving in. The pillars are left untouched after mining the reserves to support the roof.

"Coal India is using the bord and pillar technique in about 230 of its mines. About 40 million tonnes of coal per mine is locked in the pillars at the moment. We are interested in the technology that will help us extract coal that otherwise is left untapped," an official said on condition of anonymity.

The new technologies being considered by Coal India include a technique for filling gaps left after extracting coal from the pillars with flyash, a waste product generated by thermal power stations.

Another official said the company aims to recover more coal from the mines where good quality coal is locked. The proposed technology could help Coal India meet the targeted output of one billion tonnes by 2020 since increasing production from the mines with ready evacuation infrastructure would be easier, the official said.

Coal India employs majority of its 3 lakh workforce in 230-odd underground mines that produced only 36 million tonnes of coal in 2013-14 while output from opencast mines was 426 million tonnes. The company suffers a loss of about Rs 11,000 crore per annum from underground mining operations.

The advisory group for integrated development of coal, power and renewable energy led by railway minister Suresh Prabhu has advised the coal ministry to reopen underground mines abandoned due to technical constraints.

A coal ministry official said the ministry is looking at all suggestions made by the advisory group and suitable action will be taken.

Source: The Economic Times